With the hype surrounding Alien prequel Prometheus about to hit fever pitch, we thought it appropriate to look at some movies which, against the odds, managed to survive their own hype. And a few that didn’t.
1. Survived – The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) – An obvious choice but it’s not hard to see why. Peter Jackson’s critically acclaimed adaptation of J.R.R Tolkien’s classic novel was, quite possibly, the most anticipated movie of all time. Will the kiwi director pull it off a second time with fan favourite The Hobbit? We’ll find out this December.
2. Dived: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) – Most notable for Liam Neeson’s beard/ponytail combo, the word on the street is that Star Wars creator George Lucas came out of early retirement to tell the back story of the world’s most beloved movie franchise. By all accounts, he probably shouldn’t have bothered.
3. Survived: Aliens (1986) – James Cameron’s follow up to Ridley Scott’s iconic 1979 horror took the Alien franchise to a whole other genre with an altogether more action-packed and ultimately more entertaining movie, which turned out to be the most enjoyable of the series to date.
4. Dived: Alien 3 (1992) – The third in the Alien series was memorable more for Sigourney Weaver shaving her head than anything else and started the decline of the franchise into ‘video-nasty’ territory.
5. Survived: Toy Story 2 (1999) – Following one of the most successful kids movies of all time was never going to be easy but Pixar avoided the dreaded ‘doomed sequel’ curse with a film which is arguably as good if not better than the original, which, as DreamWorks discovered with Shrek, is no mean feat.
So which movies do you think survived their own hype? And, more importantly, which ones didn’t?
